The Spartan of Pandora
by SnowyBeaver
Summary: Dante has fled the UNSC knowing that with John MIA and all of the other Spartans dead, he had no purpose left in that particular part of the universe. Fleeing to Pandora, he's banded together with the Crimson Raiders, and become especially attached to a particular blue haired Siren. - Rated M for extreme violence, language and graphic sexual content. (18 and over)
1. Dante-119

**Chapter 1**

What to do? I'm standing at a fork in the path. These two hallways lead to intergalactic space cruisers. One path reads 'Pandora' and the other reads 'Eden 5'. I've heard stories about Pandora. A world so full of problems that nobody can seemingly stay away.  
"A one way ticket to Pandora please." I said as I approached the front counter. I looked out of the window and onto the runways. I could clearly see both ships and the difference was incredibly. Eden 5's ship was a huge first class cruisers, whereas the Pandora vessel looked hardly travel worthy.

"All I can say is good luck. Vault Hunter." The clerk looked down, a frown on her face. What did she call me? A Vault Hunter. I've heard about them, they go to places like Pandora, it's the call of danger that supposedly does it. Either way, I'm not a Vault Hunter. No, that's not why I'm here. My name is Dante. Dante-119, and I am one of the last Spartan's in existence. Spartan's never die, they just go missing in action. And my only friend out there, John-117 and I are the only ones left alive. I don't know what happened to John, but there's no way that he's been taken down. He's MIA like me. I fled the UNSC on purpose. The Covenant were dealt with, the flood has been destroyed. There's no purpose for Spartans anymore. So I came here.

"I am no Vault Hunter lady. I'm a Spartan." I responded, taking my freshly printed ticket. It was hot in my hands and felt good on my un gloved palms. The air around this space station was cold and thin. Luckily for me, I have my armor on, bar gloves and helmet. That's probably why she thinks I'm just another Vault Hunter looking for loot. I would hate to have her job. Every ticket she sells to Pandora is another death that she could have prevented. Luckily for her, Spartans never die. I had a single metal container of luggage that I easily carried around. Inside it held my helmet, my gloves and an assortment of weaponry that I wasn't prepared to leave behind. I made sure to bring my service tags as well. If those were found then the UNSC would have definitely known that I'd abandoned my cause.  
There's no point in dwelling over what has already been done.I'm going to Pandora, and I'm going to find something worth fighting for. Or at the very least, I'll find something worth fighting.

Once I had gotten to the docking bay. I saw a few others all lining up to get onto the ship that would take us to the infamous planet. A blue headed girl wearing a very revealing jumpsuit and some cargo pants with what looked like high mobility boots. She had some incredibly tattoos but I'm willing to wager that my body has some better ones, along with all of the battle scars I've gotten over the years. There's a few other odd looking people waiting for this crazy ride as well. When I came over to them they looked shocked at the sheer size of me. I was one of the biggest Spartan's in the entire program. Standing at seven feet in my armor, I'm one of the biggest there was. The only others of my size I can name would be John himself and that behemoth from Noble team that unfortunately made their last stand on Reach.

"Woah, who's the trooper?" I heard someone say. I looked around for the origin of the voice and found a smaller man in a soldier's fatigues, looking up at me. He had short hair with a few spikes lining the fringe. He had a sergeants emblem embedded on his forehead. I considered blanking all of these people straight off the bat, hoping that I wouldn't have to directly deal with anyone for quite a while, or at the very least until I hit Pandora. "Hey douche-bag. You just gonna' ignore us?" I heard a younger girl shout out. The sheer foulness shocked me considering how young she looked.

"Was that a child talking?" I asked, my voice deep and rarely used in a civvie situation. I prefer to use my tremendous lung power only when issuing orders on the battlefield. The girl looked back at me with immense distaste. Her fault, she swore at me.  
"I'll have you know that I'm nearly nineteen. How old are you? You look ancient. And what's with the armor, that can't protect you very much." She rambled, punching me with what appeared to be a metal arm. It did absolutely nothing and she looked a little stunned. I considered just walking away or at least getting someone to hurry up the boarding process. I'm at the end of this line and it's not going any faster.

"I'm twenty two. I've been through a lot of O.D' kind of thing does make you look a bit older." I responded, slowly wiping away the paint scrapings from where the little girl had caused a graze with her metal arm.

"Over dose?" The blue haired goth looking woman asked, looking a bit weirded out that I could potentially be a drug abuser.  
"Orbital Drops." I corrected her. "I've been selected numerous times to lead entire ODST teams. And before you ask, that means Orbital Drop Shock Troopers. We get fired from war carriers in little one man pods into the battle field, and hard to reach places." This was proving to be tough, but it seemed that I'm starting to slightly adjust to talking to people and interacting with them. That being said, I was never one of the shyer Spartans. I'd guess that John took that role.

"So who are you? Why are you coming to Pandora?" The blue haired girl continued the questioning but the cue had finally reached us and it was my time to board. I walked past them with a forced smile and showed the gate man my ticket. He ripped it up and nodded for me to walk in. I had to keep my head low because the docking bays weren't built or people of my size. I walked in to a large room that had a few windows around, and plenty of uncomfortable looking chairs. It wasn't exactly where I wanted to be, but once we got to Pandora it would be OK. I can get myself set up and find a true purpose. Sitting in one of the seats as far away as everyone else, I put my metal container on my lap and before I keyed open the locks, the tattooed woman sat down next to me with a book in her hands.

"So... Dante. I'm Maya." She smiled, outstretching her hand to shake mine. I took the gesture with a pinch of salt, assuming that she's just making small talk. I could see the muscles in her arms contract with ease. This woman was strong, much more so that the stick like men on this trip. If these people were all Vault Hunters, then most of them were going to die straight of the bat. This 'Maya' looked like she could handle herself though. She opened her book and began reading. It was in a language that I didn't understand, but then again, I'm surprised everyone speaks the same language, we're countless light years from Earth and any other UNSC occupied planet or colony.

"What's that?" I asked, keeping my eyes focused on my container and unlocking the mechanisms keeping it shut. Once it had opened up and few small lights lit up the interior, showing off all of the gear I had inside. I could see Maya's face in the reflection of my blood red helmet. Her mouth was wide open at the incredible range of weaponry stocked inside. I pulled my gloves out of their respective resting place and fitted them to my hands. It was a fit that clung to my hand like a second skin. I carried on with the rest of my gear. Strapping my magnum to it's holster on my thigh, and assorting all of my ammunition stocks to their rightful positions of the various ammo pouches on my armor. The next thing was my carbine battle rifle. It had a sling so it was easiest to just put that one on next. The last thing apart from my helmet left in the case was my trusty shotgun. Never leave home without it. I strapped it to my back where hopefully it would stay and I wouldn't have too many close encounters that would require it.

"Who are you? Really?" She asked me, keeping a hand on a particular symbol in her book. I saw it out of the corner of my eye and was shocked. I have a tattoo of that very same symbol on my left forearm. I thought not to say anything though. I simply pointed at it, trying to get the gist of what she was reading.

"That? That's an old Ankh, they say that long ago, an ancient race used this symbol to immortalize people who had risen above and beyond. You look fascinated by it." She chuckled as she monitored my reaction to the little symbol. I slowly removed my armor plating revealing the sizable ankh on my forearm. She gasped, it was exactly the same as the one in the book. "Spartan's never die." I gave a genuine smile for the first time since being here and put my amour back on.

"What exactly are you reading?" I asked her, trying to keep the conversation alive with this woman, she was the first normal person I actually wanted to talk to. She flipped the front cover over before returning to her page. "It's a set of manuscripts that supposedly detail how to expand the powers that a siren can harness." She explained the purpose of the book with a sense of pride. What's a siren? Maybe it's an order of woman that have dedicated their lives to something. Hence the tattoos possible.

"Sirens?" I asked, hoping that they weren't the type that lured sailors to their deaths. That wouldn't be good, but then I'm not a sailor.  
"Oh boy, this conversation. A siren is a woman who can harness immense power, it's easier if you think about a siren as being a woman who has a never ending link to another dimension. There can only be six sirens in the universe at any one time. I'm one of them. Sirens are easily distinguishable by the tattoos on their body." She looked at me and for a moment I had gotten lost in her deep blue eyes, but quickly came back when she started talking again. "We all have different powers, but I'm trying to find a way to expand those powers. From what I've gathered, we all get our power from a dimension that's rich in 'Phase energy' and that's the destructive force that we can center around. It's not all offensive though. I can use my power to heal wounds of a certain level." Maya kept explaining and it was all good and interesting but this was going to be a long trip and I had to find some way to keep the boredom out. I smiled and thanked her for explaining before putting my helmet on. Inside my helmet held an offline A.I. Only the best Spartans were given one. I turned her operating systems and functions online. "Powering up." A voice came from the inside of my helmet. This got the siren's attention as it was decided female.

Taking off my helmet, so that Maya could see what was going on, I decided to introduce the two of them as Maya had already somewhat earned my initial trust. "Maya, this is my A.I. Her name is Verona." I said, holding out my hand so that a flickering image of a woman appeared. A blue woman comprised of visual data streams was standing in the palm of my hand. Maya couldn't believe what she was seeing. "Hello Maya. Nice to meet another blue haired woman around here." Verona joked. I let my A.I. have her fun chatting with Maya but there was plenty of time left on this trip, so I decided to get Verona to work. "Verona can you run a full systems diagnostic and give a full damage report." I said calmly, putting my helmet back on so that I could receive the scanning reports. "Done." She said a few seconds later. It popped up on my visors HUD. Everything was as it should have been. I kept the helmet on though. "Initiate partial brain cryo sleep. Wake me up when we're in Pandora's atmosphere." I said. Verona began working on the protocols necessary to start the partial cryo sleep function. It was just meant to induce a short term sleeping pattern that would allow me to drown out the longevity of this trip. I allowed Verona to stay operational and talk to Maya for however long she wanted. When I wake from this, I will finally be on Pandora,a and free to make my own choices.


	2. Planning A Purpose

**Chapter 2 - Whoo! 50 views! XD**

'Dante! Brute Chieftain hitting our flank. Take the Gauss hog and take that bastard out!' That same sentence rang through my mind every time I slept. My commanding officer; Petty Officer Alison Briggs. One of my closest friends among the Spartan program. She died protecting me. She issued the order but didn't realize that the brute flank was an ambush to lure the Spartans out one by one. She got me out of the way but not before an explosion shook my world and killed her in the process.

Before I could register it as the nightmare that always came to me, Verona appeared at my side, on the HUD of my helmet. "The same one?" She asked, knowing how badly I suffered with the same thing. "The same one." I responded with a slight nod of the head. "Where are we now?" I started again, quickly refreshing my mind and locking the nightmares out in the process. Looking around, I brought up optical data on the HUD so that I could see what the situation was. A visual representation of the cruiser was shown alongside some tracking data which showed that we were an hour away from landing and were in fact about to enter Pandora's atmosphere.

I stood up and flexed my muscles one after another to get the feeling back into them and to get the full effect of the sleep out of my system. "Fifty seven minutes out." Verona responded coolly. I'm glad that no matter what happens, wherever I go, that I will always have someone that I can trust unconditionally.

Most of the passengers around the ship had bunked down for the trip and were deep in sleep. It seemed that once I'd put the helmet on and gone into mental cryo sleep, that I had managed to attract quite a few people's awareness to my presence. The ones who were still awake were weary of me, and rightly so. I am not someone that should be messed with. My first objective once on Pandora should be to find some locales and get a sense of what kind of government runs this shit-hole and how best to stay out of their lines of sight.  
I felt a slight change of wind behind me, and something flashed up on my radar at the bottom of my HUD, someone was using some advanced gen cloaking technology. If they're trying to kill me, they've picked the wrong person. I cautiously turned around but there was nothing there. I swatted away the thoughts as nothing more than paranoia, but they quickly came back when I remembered that it would be literally impossible for a draft on this cruisers. There IS something following me.

Putting my thoughts to one side for a moment, I planned the best way to catch something that simply isn't there. I walked through a series of passages before diving through and empty doorway and flipping my body to the ceiling and holding it there. I saw a familiar flicker of light move just below me. It was a brilliant cloaking mechanism, but it wasn't good enough for the reflexes of a Spartan. I dropped directly onto the figure and braced for a tough fight. It's hard to defend against something that you can't see. Fortunately, my would be assailant, uncloaked... ITSELF. I have no idea what the hell this thing is.

"You are swift my friend/a worthy opponent/if there ever was one." It said at last. A smiley face emanating from a solid black face-plate. When the holographic face lit up, I could see the works of electronics inside the face-plate. Did I just ambush a robotic ninja? And did he speak in haiku? Things were rapidly getting weirder for me, and I wasn't even on Pandora yet.

"So I take it you've met Zer0?" I heard a familiar voice behind me. Maya, the blue haired siren was standing in doorway viewing the scene before her. I had a ninja pinned to the floor. I carefully picked myself up and allowed whatever it was to regain it's balance and get on it's feet.

"Apparently so. Verona, scan." I held my hand out and the ninja stood perfectly still, allowing me to perform the scan. It came back organic. Interesting, utterly bizarre, but interesting. "Who are you and why are you following me?" I asked him. Taking off my helmet so that it was a less hostile atmosphere. Whether it worked or not, I wouldn't know, but the point is that I tried.

"He says that his name is Zer0. We don't know anything else. He's about as mysterious as you soldier man." Maya laughed before walking off. I followed her, leaving the ninja to his own devices. "Mysterious? You know all there is to know. Is that not enough?" I asked her, allowing Verona to appear on my shoulder. It gave me a better feel of humanity. It also made me look like a digital super space marine pirate. And that's rather cool.

"No, I want to know more. Like, what's your second name?" She kept prying. The sad truth is that I don't have one. It has become lost to me from the augmentation process that happened when I was very young. "I don't actually know. I was taken in as a child. We accept the rigorous training and augmentation easier than adults. Everything that I don't know today was lost during the time I spent in the augmentation rooms." I saw Verona shift uncomfortably from the corner of my eye. She hated it when I talked about this kind of thing because it certainly didn't help my nightmares from the Spartan program.

"That's sick!" Maya yelled, looking horrified and without warning, she pulled me into a hug. She more pulled herself into me but it was definitely there. She wrapped her arms around my armor and made it obvious that she wasn't keen on the idea of letting go at this point. "Thank you." I said quietly. She looked up at me. Hey eyes locked onto mine. I shouldn't have been able to stand direct eye contact with anyone, at least not without my helmet on, but this woman seemed to have anchored my soul in place and forbade me from moving from the spot. The air around us began to smell with a tinge of burning. Verona noticed my look of alarm and immediately alerted me to what it was.

"It's simply the friction caused by re-entry. It might be best to take a seat for this one." Verona laughed. She knew as well as I did that this wasn't the worst thing that we'd faced in the past. We went down alongside half of Noble team on Reach. We survived the initial onslaught and because of the sacrifice from Noble Six; made it to the Pillar of Autumn alive. We survived the ring alongside Petty Officer Master Chief... John. We have been through a hell of a lot with John and Cortanna. "We'll be fine." I said with a smirk, mimicking one of the first things I'd heard John say to me on the Autumn. Verona obviously found it funny but Maya who had decided to take a seat and buckle up, didn't know what we were laughing at and got confused. The air of uncertainty on board with these people was palpable. I can't have been helping the suspense by standing in full view of everyone with an active A.I. on my shoulder. I must have looked like a death trooper of some sort. "Go and sit next to her. We had a great conversation while you were sleeping." Verona whispered to me inside my helmet. I've known Maya for less than a day and already Verona has teamed up with her, and no doubt plotting against me for whatever cruel purpose women have.

By habit I did what she told me to do because whenever she tells me to do something, it always is the key to surviving. I sat down next to the siren, helmet on my lap and regretfully tried to buckle myself in, before failing miserably because with my armor on I am far to big. "Come back to me have we?" She asked, a smirk hiding her true expression. Which may well have actually just been a smirk. I don't know, I'm not great at telling women's expressions. Or men's. I just don't like civilian situations. "Verona told me to. I think I'm whipped by my A.I." I said with a sad nod of the head. Inspecting my blood red helmet for damage. It was quite a scuffle getting past the various covenant battle cruisers, but with the help of Verona guiding my ships navigation systems, we managed to get it done without that much damage to the internal systems. There were only a few breaches. There is supposedly going to be a truce between us and the covenant, but they obviously have a great intention of thinning our numbers before agreeing. Picking off stragglers.

Maya couldn't help but laugh at that, quite loudly as well. What she did next was completely unexpected and I didn't know what to do, I froze in place when she put her hand in mine and wove her fingers through my own gloved ones and held on tight. Looking away so that she didn't make it THAT awkward. What was I meant to do? I saw Verona slowly look at our hands then at me and muffle her own laugh. I bet she put Maya up to this. Without even looking at me she answered my top question, "Everyone needs to be close to someone Dante." She smiled when she finally did look at me. I didn't say anything, I just kept waiting patiently for the moment that we would touch down at the space dock. From there I don't know what I'm going to do. "Verona. Scan the planet for areas of population. We can decide what to do from there." I said. Verona confirmed that she understood her command and dissipated from view. I could see her working away on the HUD of my helmet when I tilted it down far enough to see inside.

"Can anyone wear that?" Maya asked me, taking her hand away from mine and brushing it over the sharp paint scratchiness and grazes on the surface. I didn't respond verbally, but instead looked at her and carefully placed my helmet on her head. "Ah! This is so cool!" She giggled before continuing to make a few jokes. "Verona. Identify this incredibly handsome man sitting next to me." She looked right at me. I've worked with enough other Spartans now that I know exactly where her eyes are, and I looked into them, holding contact. My face never changing. I'm far too disciplined for that. "Identifying... Complete. Spartan Major Dante-119. Do you require further analysis?" Verona was talking like there was no personality to her. It often happened when she was tasked with doing highly straining tasks at once. "Can you bring up some renders of what he looks like without the armor?" I can tell that Maya was smiling underneath that helmet, but she must have realized that there isn't any 'renders' of me not in armor.

"Disappointingly. I don't have any of those."Verona responded. A notification flashed up on screen inside. "Ooh." I heard Maya say suddenly. I took the helmet off of her gently and placed it back on my own. Opening up the scan reports. "Pandora is a very interesting place. It turns out that there's quite a few pockets of populated areas around the planet. The biggest around it a city called Opportunity. It's run by a weapons manufacturing company; Hyperion, the would be government if there ever was such a thing on this planet. The only others that have any sort of order, would be Sanctuary, and Lynchwood. I cannot suggest the latter. It would seem that anything connecting to this company are held up in a mass act of tyranny. I think that if you're still trying to find something worth fighting for, talking to the leader of this anti-Hyperion resistance would be the best way to go." Verona finally finished the report and we had reached the docking station.

"If you're trying to find a purpose, then you should become a vault hunter." Maya chimed in. The two women actively trying to find something for me to do on this new planet."Lady, the last 'vault' I found; nearly ended with the destruction of the entire universe." I said as deadpan as possible. If it weren't for Cortana and Verona's idea to blow the Autumn's engine core, then we'd all be brain food for the Flood and that damned Gravemind that we found on the second damn ring.

"Well that's sounds fairly exaggerated." She responded flatly. She may have been hoping to convince me to go with her on this little adventure of hers. I don't see why she doesn't just cut out the middle man and come with us. "Sadly, it's not." Verona said, looking depressed when she materialized in front of us both. It was time to get off of the space cruiser and onto the next form of transport. A train that would take us to mainland. Hopefully to one of these highly populated areas, possible this Sanctuary if that's where the Crimson Raiders are located. It might be worth fighting for after all.


End file.
